


just you wait, c.c. babcock (just you wait)

by MasterofAllImagination



Category: The Nanny
Genre: 5+1 Things, Canasta Masta, F/M, What the Butler Sang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28868019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterofAllImagination/pseuds/MasterofAllImagination
Summary: Five times C.C. caught Niles singing, and one time he caught her.
Relationships: C.C. Babcock/Niles (The Nanny)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 29





	just you wait, c.c. babcock (just you wait)

5

She catches him at it again one week after the backer's performance: Niles, in the kitchen, mouthing Springsteen into a whisk that drips egg over a bowl. C.C. lets the door swing shut behind her and props one hand on her hip. "Hoping for a career change, Niles?"

He raises an eyebrow at her over the whisk tines, then reaches for the radio and turns the volume up. 

"You'll be bringing Maxwell and I tea and cakes until the day you croak," C.C. says, but she struggles to hear herself over the music. At least she's been spared his hideous dancing this time. Her eyes flick down to his hips, just to make sure, and then she snags an apple, gives him one last glare, and goes out.

4

Some internal clock in C.C. pings, letting her know that a suspiciously long time has passed without having seen hide nor hair of the butler. "Where's Niles," C.C. says.

Maxwell hums distractedly.

"I'm going to find him. I want to make sure he isn't spitting in my coffee."

"C.C.," Maxwell admonishes.

Her eyes narrow. "Your butler is no saint, Maxwell."

She saunters into the living room—empty—and cranes her neck to look upstairs—deserted. Then, she hears it: the strains of something classical, hummed in an attractive baritone. "Maxwell?" she says, venturing down the hall. "Is that you?"

She nearly collides headlong with Niles bustling around the corner, a full tray held out in front of him. 

"Watch where you're _going_ ," she hisses. She skims her palms down a thankfully unmarred blazer. "This wasn't a cheap ensemble, you know."

"Yes," Niles drawls, "unlike—"

"Oh, _shut up_ ," C.C. snaps.

The corner of his mouth lifts in an infuriating smirk, and then he's maneuvering around her, humming again.

Suddenly, she asks, "Ravel's Tzigane?"

"Keen ear," Niles says. 

C.C. waits.

"For such an old dog," he says.

She doesn't realize she's smiling until Niles has disappeared into the office.

3

The casting call was a waking nightmare: twenty actresses, all _younger_ than her, butchering Eliza Doolittle in horrible cockney accents that had somehow all started to sound like Miss Fine's nasal drones. She shrugs off her coat brusquely into Niles's waiting hands. "If I have to hear another line of that _damn musical—"_

Standing behind her, Niles mutters, "Just you wait, C.C. Babcock, just you wait."

Her eyes go wide. _"No."_

"You'll be sorry, but your tears will be—" he turns, and pouts. _"Too late."_

C.C. rounds on him, but Nile shuts the closet primly and darts out of reach, suspiciously slippery; like the last time he'd served her fish at a Sheffield family dinner.

"Then they'll march you, C.C. Babcock, to the wall—and the queen will tell me, Niles, sound the call!"

There's a letter opener in her purse, and she rummages for it, murder in her heart. "I'm warning you, Niles, no jury would convict!"

"Planning to plead insanity? You'll have plenty of character witnesses," he tosses down from the balustrade.

She doesn't know which she finds more irritating: his wit or his _singing_. She slams the door of the office and takes particular glee in putting her heels up on the desk, and setting down her tea _without_ using a coaster. 

2

C.C. digs her fingers into her temples. The contract blurs in front of her eyes. It's been about an hour since Nanny Fine burst through the door in hysterics about something or another, and about fifty-seven minutes since Maxwell had put down his half of the contract, told C.C. to go on without him, and left the house with Fine in tow.

Her headache isn't going way and the loopholes in the contract aren't getting any bigger. Nothing she can't handle, of course—after an aspirin or three. She'll make Niles fetch them.

The living room is dim, and she's just about to move on to the kitchen when she spots him out of the corner of her eye, sitting in the armchair. There's a large bundle on his lap and he seems to be singing to it softly. She does a double-take.

The bundle resolves itself into a child—the youngest one, she thinks; the one she'd recommended to Dr Bort—and Niles's song sounds suspiciously like a lullaby.

Half of her wants to open her mouth and demand her aspirin, loudly; so that the little one will wake up and whine, and Niles's face will pinch up with annoyance. But the other half winces at the thought of the shrill and exhausting argument sure to follow. Her headache bangs its fists on the inside of her skull. Nothing she can't handle, she thinks, after some of the Johnny Walker in the bottom of Maxwell's cabinet. 

C.C. goes back into the office. The carpet muffles the sound of her heels. She can still hear Niles crooning faintly beyond the half-ajar door when she sits down again.

_How precious did that Grace appear  
_ _the hour I first believed  
_ _Through many dangers, toils and snares  
_ _we have already come  
_ _Twas Grace that brought us safe thus far  
_ _and Grace will lead us home._

When she turns the last page of the contract and lifts her forehead from her hand, there's a tray on the desk that hadn't been there half an hour ago, and on it, a crystal glass full of water and two white tablets. 

1

She considers, and then discards, one-liner after one-liner. She could insult his masculinity, or compare him to Miss Fine; but—

_"I'll make love to you, like you want me to,"_ Niles sings, baritone and slow, slaving away at the stove like a good hausfrau. 

—nothing's coming to her.

She'd put her own ketchup on a hot dog _one time_ and ended up with a red stain down the side of her second favorite Gucci handbag, yet the butler pours container after container of ripe berries into the pan, stirring in time to _and I'll hold you tight, baby, all through the night,_ his white shirtsleeves somehow spotless. She doesn't think she's _ever_ seen him dressed down. If there was an ass hidden under those slacks, a pair of jeans would show it off quite—

C.C. slaps a hand over her own mouth. "Did I say something," she squeaks between her fingers.

Niles looks over his shoulder at her suspiciously.

"Good," C.C. says. "You need to scrape those sides."

Niles turns back to the stove. _"I ain't got nowhere to go. I'm just gonna concentrate on you."_

C.C.'s eyes drift down. And the thighs, too, she thinks. 

"What was that?" Niles says.

Her elbow slips off the counter. "You forgot the reprise," she blurts. _"I mean—"_ and she certainly hadn't meant to let _that_ slip, because she, C.C. Babcock, wouldn't be caught _dead_ listening to music that trashy.

But after a pause, Niles dips a finger into the sweetened fruit, looks her straight in the eye, and licks it clean; so it can't have been that bad, after all.

* * *

C.C. carefully frees a still-warm cookie from the baking tray. Niles plucks a spatula from the crock at her side, then crosses behind her, and she feels fingertips trail across her back from spine to waist as he goes. "A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips," he sing-songs in her ear.

The old tic in her left eye threatens to start acting up. C.C. takes a single bite (chocolate chip; her favorite), pivots on one stiletto, and shoves the rest of it into Niles's mouth. "Pot, meet kettle," she says, digging a hard pinch into his love handles as she pushes past. Niles's dough-muffled noise of disgruntlement is music to her ears.

Point, Babcock.

She's humming when she rejoins Maxwell in the office.

"That sounds awfully familiar, C.C.," Maxwell says.

"What does?"

"That tune you're humming."

A moment later, Niles comes in, tray laden, piled conspicuously high with cookies. He gives her a wide berth. She preens. 

Maxwell accepts his cup and saucer from Niles and snaps the fingers of his free hand in the air. "Oh, I've got it—Ravel's Tzigane!"

"Oh, that," she says. "It's been stuck in my head—"

Niles is pouring a second cup, expressionless. There's a smudge of chocolate at the corner of his lips.

"—all day," she finishes, weakly.

Niles hands her the tea without looking at it. "That sounds serious, Miss Babcock. Perhaps you should see a doctor."

C.C. clenches her jaw.

Point, bellboy.

**Author's Note:**

> the blame goes to wildcard and the thanks go to goreds, my partner in thirst—cheers!


End file.
